Investment Cases

Unfortunately just because an investment you held has gone down doesn’t mean you can complain and get compensation. If you chose to take the risk and knew and understood this you have to accept that investments can go down as well as up.

 

However many people sold into the Aviva Morley funds whether Balanced or Cautious didn’t want to take any gambles with their money and Barclays knew (or should have known this). The risks and details of the investments were not explained properly and these investments were not even classified correctly and were only suitable for people who were Adventurous investors.

 

At other times our in depth research shows other problems with products such as guarantees that were not properly explained or that the actions of banks were not in their customers’ best interests for example by keeping funds open and client’s invested when they should not have been.

The aim of compensation is to put you in the position you would have been if the incorrect advice had not been given.

 

For investment cases it will be necessary to look at what the correct advice would have been. This will normally involve looking at how a benchmark has performed compared to the product you were invested in. Compensation will then be calculated on this basis. If you have surrendered the investment interest will be paid on any loss compared to the benchmark up to the date they pay you compensation.  In line with regulations this part of your compensation will be taxed at 20% however if you are a non-taxpayer you will be able to reclaim this.

This depends on the particular case. We aim to win our cases within 6-9 months although we can occasionally win claims in just a few months and complaints against some firms take far longer than others.

 

If a case needs to be sent to the Financial Ombudsman Service this is likely to lengthen your case by at least 3 to 9 months and if the case needs an Ombudsman to issue a final decision this is likely to be even longer.

All you need to do is either start a chat with us through this website, or give us a call on FREEPHONE 0800 222 9064

Don’t worry. Just send us the information you know and we should be able to get the information we need directly from the bank or other firm that gave you the advice, or the investment provider. We aim to do all the work for you and answer any questions the bank may ask.

Once we have received your completed forms we will request any necessary information we need to assess your case and then make a complaint directly to the firm. If necessary we will also arrange for the complaint to go to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) or Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) depending on the details of your case.

Our fees for each investment are based on a portion of the compensation amount. The fee depends on the redress amount for each investment account as detailed below.

Redress Band	Redress Amount		Max % Fee	Max Total Fee (including VAT at 20%)
	Lower Limit	Upper Limit
1	£1	£1,499	30% plus VAT	£504
2	£1,500	£9,999	28% plus VAT	£3,000
3	£10,000	£24,999	25% plus VAT	£6,000
4	£25,000	£49,999	20% plus VAT	£9,000
5	£50,000	NA	15% plus VAT	£12,000

Please note that this is not to be taken as an estimate of the amount likely to be recovered.

We have been in business since the 90’s as a partnership. It is believed to be the first business set up in the UK to help people who had lost money from bad financial advice. We became a Limited Company in 2011 and have helped thousands of people in a wide range of claims against Banks, Building Societies and other Financial Advisors.

Yes. Of course you can. It is important that you are aware of this so that you know all of your options at this stage. If you want to have a go then do so and please use the information on this website and others to help you. You can complaint to the firm that gave you the advice for free and if they reject your case (or don’t offer you the correct amount) you can take your case to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) for free.

 

Loss calculations are a somewhat technical area and you would probably be helped by looking at some of FOS’ own publications on the matter such as their online resource and Guidance Notes. You should be aware that FOS’ compensation formulas do not always mirror those of the courts. And remember one very important thing. You cannot win a complaint solely because your investment has performed badly. You must provide reasons why you believe the policy was mis-sold or explain in what way it was not suitable for you.

 

For other types of cases, for example, you may wish to make a claim for consequential loss you must explain to FOS in some detail what your existing liabilities were and why you did not use part or all of the investment funds to reduce them. These may not have been recorded in the point of sale paperwork and without you drawing the matter to FOS’ attention and giving a full account of what happened the extra amount of compensation you may be owed would not be awarded. So remember, it is important that you do a thorough job and tell FOS everything helping them to make the right decision.

 

If you are uncertain on how to present your case to the Ombudsman Service you can always ring us up for some free advice and we will point you in the right direction.

Of course you can. At any time. We offer a 14 day cooling-off period so that there will be no charge whatsoever if you change your mind in the first 14 days after asking us to help. Our full contractual agreement is available on this site setting out our terms of business. This explains that there will be a charge after the cooling-off period for cancelling the agreement as we cannot afford to work for people, making phonecalls, writing letters, sending faxes and emails, carrying out complex calculations of loss etc. and then be told by clients “you’re fired” – sometimes just before our clients know they are going to receive compensation.